The Rancher Takes a Bride

“I’m driving.” He had his truck keys out. “Lock up your shop and let’s go.”

“I can drive. You really don’t have to.”

He let out a long sigh. “Oregon, don’t argue with me. You’re in no condition to drive. I’m taking you.”

She nodded and hurried inside, finding her purse and her keys, leaving the petunias on the stoop to be planted later. As she walked out the front door, locking it behind her, Joe was telling Duke he’d like to ride along. Duke looked to Oregon, and she nodded.

Joe was little more than a stranger, a homeless man who had worked for Duke and moved into a small house down the street. But he was a good man, and Lilly adored him.

Today she needed these two men. And she needed for Lilly to be okay. She needed to know that God heard her prayers.

She needed the strength of Duke’s arms as he walked her to his waiting truck. Those big arms made her rethink everything. It was time to tell the truth. Her heart ached, worrying about her daughter, about their future and Duke’s reaction to the news she would tell him.

* * *

Duke risked a cautious look at Oregon to make sure she was holding it together. She’d been unusually quiet on the ride to Austin. Joe, who sat next to her, was also quiet. He saw that Oregon’s eyes were closed, and her lips were moving as she prayed.

He didn’t know much about her, but he did know she attended Martin’s Crossing Community Church. He’d seen her there the few times he’d darkened the door. Now he knew she was a praying woman. He also knew that she had a mom who liked to stir up trouble and who wasn’t too fond of Oregon’s religion.

He’d like to reclaim his own faith, but he and God were having some issues about prayers he’d said for kids in Afghanistan. He shook his head, not wanting to focus on that, not right now with Lilly on her way to the hospital.

He reached for Oregon’s hand and squeezed it. “She’s going to be okay.”

“I know. I know.” Oregon wiped away the tears that streamed down her cheeks. “She was talking. That’s a good sign. Isn’t it?”

“Yes, always a good sign.”

Anger suddenly flashed in her eyes. Funny, he’d thought they were hazel; now he realized they were the warmest shade of gray possible. “Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear, Duke. You were a medic. I want your opinion.”

“A medic, not a doctor. And kids aren’t exactly my area of expertise.”

“Duke, please.”

He slowed for a stoplight. “Only a mile to the hospital.”

“What are you trying to hide?”

“I’m not hiding anything. I’m just trying to decide the best answer because I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”

“Tell me she’s going to be okay,” she sobbed.

Yeah, that’s exactly what he was avoiding. “I think she had broken bones and possibly some internal injuries. I’m going by my own assessment and the paramedics’ conversation as they loaded her in the ambulance.”

Oregon nodded, the conversation ending in nervous silence. Joe patted Oregon’s leg and said that he knew one thing with certainty; that God would take care of Lilly. Duke didn’t say that he’d seen a lot of prayers go unanswered during his time in Afghanistan.

“Here we are.” He pulled his truck into the hospital parking lot and found a space close to the emergency room. He exited and then waited for Oregon.

Something happened in that moment as he watched and waited for her to get out. It was like the past crashing into the future, and he didn’t know what it meant. It was a flashback of laughing with a dark-haired girl who had just won her first cash prize on a barrel horse she’d trained herself. With a shake of his head he cleared the memory.

Sitting in his truck, Oregon visibly pulled herself together before she stepped out. The wind whipped her hair and wrapped her prairie skirt around her legs. Joe waited for them on the other side. The three of them walked toward the emergency room entrance. As they got closer, Oregon’s steps slowed, faltering. Duke took her hand and looked down at her. Her eyes met his and it seemed familiar.

He shook it off. The memory wasn’t real.

But the pain in her eyes was. He squeezed her hand. “She’ll be okay.”

“I’m taking your word for that.” Her voice trembled on the words.

Duke led her through the automatic doors to a desk, where a receptionist smiled up at them. Joe stood on her other side, his hand on her back.

“We’re here with Lilly Jeffries, brought in by ambulance from Martin’s Crossing,” Duke told the woman who had already started searching her computer.

“Are you parents or legal guardians?” the receptionist asked, barely looking up at them.

“I’m her mother,” Oregon replied.

“She’s being examined right now.” The woman behind the desk pushed paperwork on a clipboard across the counter. “If you could fill this out.”

“I want to see my daughter.” Oregon’s voice didn’t shake. She looked at the woman, her eyes fierce, the way a mother’s eyes should be.

Not that Duke had any real experience with mothers. His own had skipped out on them right before his tenth birthday. They hadn’t seen her since the day she hopped in her car and took off.

Oregon wasn’t that kind of mom.

The receptionist nodded, and her features softened. “Green ward, room C. Take the paperwork with you.”

“Thank you.”

Duke reached for her hand, a strangely familiar gesture. He’d ignored this woman for the past year. He’d been busy with his diner. She’d been busy getting her own business off the ground. She hadn’t seemed to want more from him than an occasional take-out meal. Come to think of it, she’d rarely stepped foot in the diner. She’d always sent Lilly to get their food.

Why was he thinking about this now, as she walked next to him, her hand tightly gripping his? Joe walked on her other side, quiet, staid. The older man had settled in a few months back and seemed content to stay awhile in Martin’s Crossing.

They reached the room with the open glass door. Inside, a doctor stood next to Lilly, his smile easy, his gestures not those of a man in the middle of an emergency. He waved them inside.

“You must be Mom. We’ve been asking for you. After we settled on the fact that it isn’t Saturday, and she wasn’t on her way to school when the bus hit her.” The doctor smiled down at his patient. “We’re going to do a CT scan of that head, and then we’ll do some X-rays.”

The doctor motioned Oregon out of the room and followed close behind her. Duke went with her. Joe stayed with Lilly, who grimaced in pain as she told him something they couldn’t hear after the doctor slid that glass door closed.

“You’re her dad?” the doctor asked. Duke shook his head.

“No. I just drove her mom up here.” He glanced down at the woman next to him, her lower lip between her teeth, her worried gaze on the girl inside that room.

“You can stay,” she whispered, still not looking at him.

The doctor looked from Oregon to Duke, gave a curt nod and continued. “We’re going to run some tests. She has some abdominal tenderness. I’m sure we’ve got a fracture in her left leg. We’ll know more after X-rays.”

“She’ll be okay?” Oregon finally looked away from her daughter and made eye contact with the doctor.

“She’ll be fine. She’s not going to be happy when she realizes what a cast will do to her summer activities, but hopefully we can have her back on two good legs very soon.”